Via Laura Rozen, the Badr Brigades have taken over Baghdad’s mayor’s office according to the NYtimes. The Brigades are the SCIRI’s armed militia and are directly backed by Iran (trained and funded), so to say this is a major development is more than an understatement:
The deposed mayor, Alaa al-Tamimi, who was not in his offices at the time, recounted the events in a telephone interview on Tuesday and called the move a municipal coup d’état. He added that he had gone into hiding for fear of his life.
“This is the new Iraq,” said Mr. Tamimi, a secular engineer with no party affiliation. “They use force to achieve their goal.”
The group that ousted him insisted that it had the authority to assume control of Iraq’s capital city and that Mr. Tamimi was in no danger. The man the group installed, Hussein al-Tahaan, is a member of the Badr Organization, the armed militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as Sciri.
The militia has been credited with keeping the peace in heavily Shiite areas in southern Iraq but also accused of abuses like forcing women to wear the veils demanded by conservative Shiite religious law.
It seems a power struggle between Tamimi, who was appointed mayor of Baghdad by the Coalitional Provisional Authority, and Tahaan, governor of Baghdad province, had been going on for quite awhile, leading up to the coup that has officialy placed control of Baghdad firmly in Shi’ite hands. Tamimi worked on Hussein’s nuclear program, although didn’t consider himself a member of the Ba’ath party, but the cooperation alone was most likely enough to engender hatred among portions of the SCIRI.
As of yet there’s no comment from Jaafari, although one of his aides has “guessed” he’s concerned (wow, really? Jaafari himself can’t be bothered to comment on a coup in the capital by his political allies?) It’s a politically difficult situation for Jaafari; backing Tamimi would be very close to supporting a Ba’athist, although not technically, and supporting Tahaan would come across as support for strong arm tactics employed by Iraqi militias such as the Badr Brigades, a group that has been producing enough problems for Iraqi unity as is without a coup to further sully its reputation (see here.)
Odd that the other media outlets haven’t jumped on this yet. If Yahoo! World News has space for “Waves of jellyfish invade Spanish beaches”, I’d assume “Shi’ite militia takes control of Baghdad” would also have some prominent screen real estate. Developing…
Cross-posted to Digital Dissent